Corporate practices and ethical tensions: Researching social justice values and neoliberal paradoxes in a ‘no excuses’ charter school

In recent years, there has been growing debate over the corporatisation of schooling, specifically the managerial practices of expanding charter school networks in the USA, often referred to as charter management organisations (CMOs). By definition, CMOs are consistently high-performing, well-financed networks of small schools operating in urban spaces, which adhere to a very specific ‘no excuses’ (NE) model of education in serving primarily students of colour living in poverty. This article is an autoethnographic account of my work as a leader in a CMO, which I theorise as a neoliberal project. We know very little of how neoliberal policies and ideologies are enacted in daily school life. I consider how the ethical responsibility of an educator is positioned within the daily practices and lived experience of leaders and educators working in a CMO. In focusing on my own ethical tensions, the article captures how this corporatised model of schooling influenced my values as an educator, my conflicted sense of social justice and the emotional labour of enacting a model of schooling founded on surveillance and accountability.     

论语言文化的教学与研究

语言文化教学与研究在近十年来取得飞速发展。本文试从语言文化教与学的关系,教学与课程发展趋势这两方面,结合教学与研究的最新动态与今后研究重点等,对语言文化的教学与研究进行了简要的分析。     

Catalog Users “In the Wild”: The Potential of an Ethnographic Approach to Studies of Library Catalogs and Their Users

An increasing number of library user studies are employing ethnographic techniques as an alternative to more traditional qualitative methods such as surveys. Such techniques, however, are only beginning to see significant application to catalog user studies. Beginning with a discussion of the applied ethnographic method and its current usage within the field of Library and Information Science research, this article will assess methods that have traditionally been applied to studies of catalog users and present the case for the potential of an ethnographic approach for future catalog evaluation and design.     

戏剧在外语教学中的文化输入作用

文化与语言存在着相互促进与制约的密切关系,有效的目的语文化输入是外语教学中不可或缺的组成部分.在外语教学对文化输入的需求日益高涨的背景之下,文章以戏剧教学的五大文化输入优势为出发点,回顾了传统外语教学对戏剧的几种运用方式,分别总结了各种方式的优缺点,并引入Cunico(2005)的"民族志戏剧教学法"(Ethnographic Approach),以其实验为依托,分析论证了此种戏剧运用方式对于外语教学中的文化输入的积极推动作用,强调了语言文化学习的多样性与复杂性.     

THE ONLINE JOURNALIST BETWEEN IDEALS AND AUDIENCES

How do online journalists define themselves? Journalistic self-perception plays a big part in understanding developments in the practice of online journalism in newsrooms. This article presents an analysis of the self-perceptions of online journalists using the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu and data from empirical longitudinal observations based on ethnographic fieldwork in three Danish newsrooms. The analytical concepts “journalistic doxa”, “news habitus” and “editorial capital” are applied in an analysis both of ethnographic observations of journalistic practice, and a series of interviews with 35 journalists and editors. This analysis shows that online journalists position themselves in opposition to the “old” forms of journalism, which include the use of such well-known journalistic resources as specialist knowledge, technical skills, and research and writing as professional tools. However, at the same time they accept the “old” as “better” journalism, which indicates that online journalism is deeply embedded in a dominated position in the overall field of journalism. A scheme of four different analytical positions among online journalists is presented within a constructed “field of online news production”.     

Reproducing peace? A CRT analysis of Whiteness in the curriculum and teaching at a University of The UN

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education is a blossoming field. Literature (both conceptual and conjectural) and research (theoretical and empirical) has proliferated in recent decades. This paper details case findings from an ethnographic study with university-based PACS educators completed at one University of The United Nations in 2015. The six-month ethnography involved document analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with 25 peace scholars and 108 postgraduate students. Data was thematically coded and analyzed using concepts from critical race/critical Whiteness studies. This paper outlines the study and explores the theme of Whiteness that emerged from data. Findings point toward the cultural reproduction of Whiteness in the faculty, pedagogy, and institution. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications concerning global equity and ‘post-structural violence’ in PACS education, as well as a call for further research into the role of peacebuilding education in broader social change.     

Finding time for quality teaching: an ethnographic study of academic workloads in the social sciences and their impact on teaching practices

University workloads, their impact on staff and how they can be managed, are the subject of considerable research and discussion. This paper addresses strategies to deal with the impact of workloads on teaching practices in higher education. In particular, it aims to discover the implicit theories and tacit assumptions that underlie perceptions of what constitutes quality teaching in the social sciences. Using an ethnographic approach, the research revealed that the strategies used by staff are linked to how they identify themselves: as researchers or ‘good’ teachers, and highlights a mismatch between the value academics place on quality teaching and what is rewarded by universities. The paper illustrates that strategies rely on assumptions about the nature of time, and the links between time and quality. Academics have little opportunity for critical reflection on teaching practices in order to be responsive to the changing contexts of higher education.